John Linton
..........after less than 10 years? Dial up still clings onĀ at the fringes and it's been around for over 20 years now.
I had a 'chat' with a long term industry acquaintance yesterday afternoon who keeps in touch with many of her 'old customers' and has always been a good source of information about what is 'going on' around Australia in the ISP marketplaces - though, as with all general discussions between long term 'acquaintances' the information sometimes is more gossip than hard facts. Nevertheless, she is always an enjoyable conversation maker and always has interesting things to say and appears to have far more access to 'industry information' than I do.
One of the things she mentioned more than once was the slowing growth in ADSL that two of the larger companies were experiencing (iinet/Westnet and TPG) which her 'informants' told her had fallen well below 10%. (no idea how accurate this information was) but she also said that BigPond's growth was almost zero (based on modem shipment decreases progressively over the past six months) and I have heard from two different sources that Optus' retail and wholesale ADSL growth has slowed significantly (no percentage was given and as Optus wind back its ADSL1 customer base it will be difficult to replace).
May well just be gossip and there is no way of knowing but the 'collateral' signs (press statements/advertising 'tone'/fora comments) all point to slower increases in ADSL usage around Australia - particularly ADSL1 usage which was always going to happen as more ADSL2 exchanges were activated and as HSPA speeds increased and prices dropped. So, gossip or not, ADSL is teetering on the edge of 'slow growth' inevitably leading to no growth and then, at some not too distant point in time, decline. Decline in terms of 4,000,000 plus users in any marketplace is never going to be an 'over night' thing and, as with dial up, it will takes years if not decades before the last ADSL modem's on light is permanently extinguished. However it is a 'straw in the wind' if in fact what was being stated was close to actuality.
Telstra's announcement of increasing its cable speed to 100 mbps in Melbourne by the end of 2009 certainly won't assist ADSL continue its growth as, irrespective of how price gouging Telstra are inclined to be, they do need cable to become far more popular in the capital cities to destroy other ISPs ADSL2 user bases and, without any question or doubt, their marketing campaigns will target those ADSL2 user bases. Again, irrespective of the doubts that its competitors (are there really any true competitors to Telstra at this time?) will try and promote about the pitfalls of "shared technology", 100 mbps headline speeds and a whole lot of 'free' content will inevitably halt ADSL2 growth wherever Telstra cable is available and will then begin to 'churn' competitor's ADSL2 customers to faster and 'content richer' cable.
There may be other scenarios but you would have to be a very unrealistically optimistic person, or someone with 'blinkered' views of the 'future' to really see it any differently. A putative NBN has no hope of competing with the Telstra cable in the major proportion of the residential data market places in the short term and neither does any other technology. It will only be, if that in fact is the case, Telstra's predilection for sky high pricing that will, at least at first, limit the damage to other ISP's ADSL user bases.
So, certainly in the State capital cities cable will replace ADSL as the preferred data service for residential users just as it has everywhere else in the world where cable is available. Because its Telstra, and because of Telstra's 100% track record of over charging for as long as possible after they introduce anything 'new', it may take longer than in other countries but it will over time be the case. Perhaps, if the "NBN" actually does threaten to get built in some form or other, then Telstra will price more sensibly more quickly but one thing is sure - they will use their cable to destroy the viability of any competitive offering.....and who would do anything any different in their place? Certainly A 'non-shared' cable service is preferable to the current Telstra topology but, irrespective of what is said about "contention", all services are subject to the back haul restrictions that are largely responsible for slow transits and packet loss on the current ADSL networks including Telstra's and Optus.
Perhaps the next set of ABS figures will show something different but I doubt it - it looks like ADSL has used up the dial up base as a rapid source of growth and HSPA has begun to 'nibble' away the low end of the ADSL customer base and that will only increase over the remainder of this year. Telstra will almost certainly 'crank' up the appeal of its current cable offerings in preparation for its more widespread 'assault' in 2009's Christmas season and the financial problems growing across Australia will do the rest to slow growth in most buyers desires and wants as well as, unfortunately, causing an increasing number of people to discontinue ADSL services because they can no longer afford them.
Perhaps this will be the year that ADSL numbers slow, halt and then start to decline?